The Armenian Genocide has lately attracted a lot of attention, despite the Turkish government's attempts at denial. It has been developed into a central obstacle to Turkey's entry into the European Union. As such it attracts the highest political and public attention. What is largely ignored in the debate, however, is the fact that Armenians were not the only victims of the Young Turk's genocidal population policies. What is still largely forgotten is the murder, expulsion and deportation of other ethnic groups like Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds and Arabs by the Young Turks.

This not only increases the number of victims, but also changes the perspective on the foundation of modern Turkey and as such on modern Turkish history more generally. "The Thematic Issue of the JGR", the republication of which is proposed here, is the first publication, which addresses these wider issues. It contributes not only to our understanding of the Young Turks' population and extermination policies in all its complexities and so helping to bring the forgotten victims' stories 'back' into genocide scholarship, but to our understanding of modern Turkey more generally. It is an indispensable tool for everybody interested in one of the great historical controversies of our time.

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The Young Turks' overall aim was a demographic reorganization of the Ottoman Empire. All deportations were planned and supervised by the 'Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants' that belonged to the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior. A relatively small number of government administrators were thus chiefly involved in the coordination of the murder and expulsion of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other minority groups. Therefore, the isolated study and emphasis of a single groups' victimhood during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire fails to really understand Young Turks' motives and aims or its grand design.-Dominik Schaller, Jurgen Zimmerer.